Keith Brackpool's Cadiz proposal back in the Spotlight

Time for Mayor Villar's former boss, party friend, vacation host and confidant Keith Brackpool to move on ??

That is moving on with his water storage scheme in the Mojave Desert as the Los Angeles Business Journal reports.

Cadiz Inc. was the biggest price gainer Friday on the Nasdaq after announcing it signed letters of intent with five Southern California water providers to partner on a $200 million underground water storage project.

The proposal resurrects a water-banking project that the Metropolitan Water District killed in 2002 after opposition from environmentalists and questions that arose about the finances of the Los Angeles natural resources company.

The project would involve pumping Colorado River water into an aquifer beneath 35,000 acres Cadiz owns near the U.S. Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms. The water would then be stored and piped to Los Angeles and other Southern California counties.

The prior effort died when environmentalists argued that pumping the aquifer would harm the desert’s delicate ecology. Other critics questioned Cadiz’s ability to carry out the project, given the company’s high debt load.

Brackpool who employed Villar as a consultant after his 2001 loss in the Mayoral Race, has the support of Governor "Kennedy Republican" another politician with waning political capital.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is among several politicians and labor leaders backing the new proposal, which he claimed is environmentally sensitive.

“This innovative project, utilizing sophisticated water conservation practices, will sustainably recover more than one million acre feet of water that would otherwise be lost to evaporation and make it available to help provide a reliable source of water for Southern California,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. (payed for with stock options ??).

The resurgence of the Cadiz is sure to spark a slap back from within the environmental community, but who will lead the battle. or could this spark a civil war among environmental groups ??

As seen with the recent Los Angeles Magazine Article on Tejon Ranch, the likes of the Sierra Club, who's Desert Chapter led the fight against Cadiz the last time, is more apt to compromise than fight these days for conservation issues (one must remember that DWP Director of Human Resources Susana Reyes is the Sierra Club's Los Angeles County Political Director).

One would have to bet on the "Wildlands Conservancy" and the "Center for Biological Diversity" to take the lead on opposing the newest Cadiz scheme. The Wildlands Conservancy is not too happy these days with Mayor Villar and some of the DWP's powerline schemes.

Your thoughts......